Kuba

An Afghan Kuba rug, knotted by hand with hand-carded, hand-spun, vegetable-dyed wool, woven by master weavers in northern Afghanistan.

Inspired by the weaving traditions of the Kuba district in the eastern Caucasus, in present-day Azerbaijan, where culturally diverse village weavers produced some of the finest and most densely knotted Caucasian rugs of the nineteenth century, often adapting Persian all-over floral designs into crisp, angular drawing. Kuba rugs are also known for distinctive Kufic borders, descended from the angular forms of early Arabic calligraphy that appeared as carpet ornament by the Seljuk period and, over centuries of Anatolian, Persian, and Caucasian weaving, evolved into an abstract geometric border tradition.